2024-05-27
The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has announced that they will be removing protections for Greater Gliders rather than ensuring the NSW Forestry Corporation is complying with Site Specific Biodiversity Conditions that were updated just over 3 months ago.
The changes come after community reports were made to the EPA last months, that the Forestry Corporation was logging Greater Glider hotspots without complying with the rules.
“The EPA has walked away from their regulatory responsibilities over native forest logging and announced that they will change the rules to suit logging, rather than protecting threatened species,”
“The back-down comes after the community reported to the EPA in April and May that the Forestry Corporation had breached the greater glider pre logging conditions hundreds of times since it was introduced, these reports should have seen non-compliant logging shut down immediately,”
“Shockingly, the Minister for the Environment told Parliament on 15 May that she does not have the power to direct the EPA, this is simply not the case. It is clearly written in the law that she does have the power to issue directions to the EPA when it is in the public interest to do so.”
“Considering the clear threat that logging poses to Greater Gliders, a species that is on the edge of extinction, the Minister should direct the EPA to do whatever is necessary to prevent their continued decline,”
“Australian animals facing extinction in our public native forests will be killed, and their habitat destroyed this can only be described as political failure by the Minns Labor Government and the EPA,”
“It is just over 3 months ago that NSW changed the rules for checking for Greater Glider habitat before logging in native forests, this announcement is an embarrassing failure to stand up against a rogue state-owned corporation, the NSW Forestry Corporation,”
“The EPA response to community reports of non-compliant logging is perverse. Rather than address the issue, they have handed an blank cheque to the extinction logging that is happening in NSW native forests,”
“The time for weak action against environment vandals is over. If the Minns Labor Government will not keep their election promises to reverse the destruction of native forests, they will be held to account by the public,” Ms Higginson.